To wrap up #ScifiMonth, I thought I’d search around for an artist that does sci-fi inspired art—and voila! Today’s feature is: Pascal Blanché and his rusty, dusty, vermillion and chartreuse beings and universes. He’s apparently the Art Director of Ubisoft (creators of Assassin’s Creed) but he does his own projects on the side, one of them being a Tumblr project called “Stardust” in which he focuses more on compact starships and hulking space stations flitting and floating in the nebulae-filled backdrops of space. The works I’ve chosen for this post are my favorites of his. He calls his body of work windows into his “Derelict Planet“—and you totally do get a sense of worlds older than time, places preserved in the lost stillness of space, and beings with ancient eyes and far-flung thoughts.

I like his art because there is something very retro about it. Like, check out this alien’s gear! Those heavy cables and thick metal rods and segments look bulky and unwieldy yet she carries it all with grace.

Deep inside some ancient stone monument—a being finds a ball of something that looks like it’s made of cast-iron. I like the rust that seems to be slowly creeping over her armor/gear…does she ever take it off? Or is it merged with the organic part of her?

I really like this one for its bone-white colors and pastel tinge. From his deviantArt page, Pascal Blanché explains that he “made this one, wondering what a space native would look like”. This alien being almost looks like a dessicated spore floating through space, waiting for optimal conditions before re-hydrating and waking up.

One of my favorites is this rusty-looking piece featuring a giant being and a tiny being engaging in some sort of silent conversation facilitated by all that ancient-looking gear. The color tones here are lovely and warm and give off this feeling of stillness and meditation.

A young huntress calming her partner at the sight of something threatening in the dust-filled horizon. When I saw this one, I had to add it into my top favorites list. Because…Dinosaur! This one is telling a story in a world that I want to read about!

From Pascal Blanché’s own words: “Based on the King’s arthur legends.. with a SCIFI twist, here comes Uther Pendragon, Arthur’S father and First Ruler of Britania”. Love it! It kind of looks like Uther sat down at his throne and just never left…becoming petrified from the constant blast of desert heat…becoming part of his stone throne.

My last favorite of his works is Pascal Blanché’s imagining of Princess Irulan from the Dune-verse. We get a sense of the intimacy of the cozy, velvet-strewn and amber-lit room as well as the black-blue infinity of the galaxy—microcosmic and macrocosmic all merged within the power embodied in the being’s face. I love the symmetry of this piece!

These are all so beautiful and detailed. I don’t keep track of sci-fi or fantasy artists enough. They do such a wonderful job of portraying a feeling, a scene, an idea. It really is wonderful to look at an artists work like this. Thanks, Sharry!